Photo (c) Hilary Staff

LITA (Light In The Attic) is one of the strongest label of the moment, building his reputation with great new releases and essential reissues (Sixto Rodriguez, Wendy Rene…)! Very happy to let Matt Sullivan, co-owner and founder, talk about their work!

When did you start digging records?
Around 1993/94. At the time I was the Music Director at my small 10-watt High School radio station – where my eyes and ears discovered another world – much of which was independent, off-the-radar sounds.

What Lps did you buy at first?
American indie rock and classic rock.

Do you still listen to them?
All the time.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
It’s all over the map and always changing and evolving and devolving. I guess it depends on my current mood.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Yes. In life, few things still get me as high as visiting a record store. However, with two little kids and running a business, looking for records doesn’t happen as often as I’d like.

What was your first release on Light In The Attic ?
The first two albums by The Last Poets. The project was a co-release with our friends at Vampi Soul and came out in October 2002.

Why did you choose this name : Light In The Attic?
It gives hope that something positive remains in an old dusty attic.

TL Barrett, Bill Russell, Isaac Hayes and Jesse Jackson in sixties

Pastor T.L. Barrett & The Youth For Christ Choir
Nobody Knows

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
Quality over quantity.

How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
There’s no straight rhyme or reason to it. Our roots in the archival/reissue world started in 1997 when I interned at a label called Munster Records in Spain. The music played on the office turntable – bands like Suicide, Eden Ahbez, Spacemen 3, the Monks – immediately altered my musical landscape, along with my earlier plan on starting a label (which was to focus on contemporary music). When I got back to Seattle I was fully focused on a label that mixed reissues and archival music as well as contemporary artists/bands, but with a wide array of sounds, genres, eras. Around the same time, I started going to a record store called Bedazzled Discs. The owner, Al Milman (vocalist of killer 70s punk band the Al Milman Sect) became one of those magical record store gurus, sharing an unknown world of records, bands and sounds. Munster, Milman, and hours sitting on the floor at Tower Records in Bellevue, Washington, reading Melody Maker interviews with Kurt Cobain and The Verve babbling on about bands like Can, the Raincoats, the Electric Prunes, and David Axelrod would shape my world and plant the roots for Light In The Attic. It was the pre-internet age, so you had to work to discover anything outside of the confines of commercial radio.

What was the most important of your releases?
“Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966–1985.” Over a ten year period, Kevin «Sipreano» Howes put together the collection, which showcases First Nations and Native Americans performing folk, rock and country music. The music is immensely powerful. Sadly much of the hardship and stories being told in those songs still rings true today. It’s made an impact on the musicians featured within as well as people like myself. I have a hard time thinking we’ll ever top it.

More generally, LITA is very good at reissuing obscure LP’s with strong commercial potential (Karen Dalton, Jim Sullivan, Lee Moses, Wendy Renee and of course Rodriguez). Is it a label’s philosophy?
We’ve been fortunate to have chosen a number of releases that have crossed-over, but much of it has been the luck of the draw.

Rodriguez LP’s are now considered as one of the best reissues of all times, in the sense of making successfull to a large audience a previously relatively unknown album ! Are you proud of that?
Incredibly. It’s been a surreal journey.

What was your biggest disappointment, I mean the reissue you thought was a sureshot but did not go as expected?
Two projects that we’re extremely proud to have been involved with, but we remain bummed on the world’s quiet response would be:
Johnnie Frierson – “Have You Been Good To Yourself”
National Wake – “Walk in Africa 1979-1981”
I’m still very hopeful that the world will come around though. Some things take time.

You reissued 2 amazing gospel soul LP’s, any plans for more of that style in the future?
Thank you! There’s a bunch. The one I’m most excited about has taken about 6 years to – almost – bring to frution. It’s a never-ending licensing nightmare but I’m hopeful it’ll become a reality by 2020.

You recently decided to open a physical store. What does it fit in your strategy of development?
We love brick and mortar record stores and always wanted to have our own.

In your team, does everyone have a specialty, a privileged domain? Do you also call on external partners? A world network ?
Yes. There are 16 of us at Light In The Attic. While everyone has a primary focus, we are an independent business so we’re all wearing many hats. Half of the company is based at our office in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, overseeing the production of the releases, licensing for film/tv/adverts/sampling, publicity/marketing, etc. The other half is based in Seattle, which is the home for all things sales, accounting and our distribution hub. We distribute over 75 labels and sell direct to hundreds of stores, so that’s a large part of the company. Along with distributing some amazing labels like Music From Memory, Tidal Waves Music, Mondo/Death Waltz, Lion Productions and Mississippi Records, we’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with some immensely knowledgeable reissue producers – Hunter Lea, DJ Supreme La Rock, Sipreano, Zach Cowie, and Alec Palao, amongst so many others ; genius audio engineers like John Baldwin and Dave Cooley, exceptionally talented writers like Sam Sweet, Andria Lisle, Sarah Sweeney, and Jessica Hundley, amongst dozens of others. Without thèse folks, we’d be stuck at home eating twinkies and watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

So Natural

You cover many styles of music. Not being specialized, is it a strength or a weakness?
Maybe I’m biased, but it’s always felt like a strength. Personally, it’s made things more interesting, as we love so many different styles, so we have the freedom to keep searching regardless of era, genre, or country. I’d be too restless if we only did one thing.

Do you believe there are still countries, genres, periods, not covered by this phenomenal and global movement of reissues?
No question. It is infinite. We’re currently in Japan, working on over two dozen reissue/archival projects, all of which have never been released outside Japan. The world is an endless well of discovery. Anyone who thinks otherwise is stuck in a cardboard box with blinders on.

And how do we succeed in entering the current scene, signing artists, when we are very identified for reissues – more than 200 – from the past?
There’s always a bit of the past in the present.

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs, artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
Not a lot, but it does happen from time to time. You can’t win ’em all.

Nowadays, there are many LP labels who follow this model, I mean more quality even if it’s more expensive… but in same time, there are also another « new » LP market, with majors’ come-back and other labels, who prefer to sell cheaper. Is it the (re)creation of two camps for the LP?
Yes, at the moment. Two extremely different ways of doing things. I’d guess that the cheaper market won’t last in the long run.

There are more and more reissues of old LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
Sadly, the point of over-saturation is already here, but thankfully the joys of discovery will never end if one cares to look deeper.

Wendy Rene
After Laughter

What are your next releases?
“Acetone – 1992-2001”
– Anthology of criminally over-looked Los Angeles band. The anthology is a companion release to a new book called Hadley-Lee-Lightcap by Sam Sweet. Beautiful, beautiful music. One of my favorite releases in our entire catalog.
V/A – “Even A Tree Can Shed Tears Even A Tree Can Shed Tears: Japanese Folk & Rock 1969-1973”
– A few years back, musician and collector Jake Orrall gave us a CD-R of his favorite Japanese folk and rock. For months, that CD-R didn’t leave our stéréo. After two trips to Japan and much licensing shenanigans, the release has finally come to fruition and marks the first in our Japan Archival Series. Next up is “Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990 and Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1975-1985”. There will be nearly two dozen more releases in the series.
Lee Hazlewood – “Forty, Requiem For An Almost Lady, and The Cowboy And The Lady”
– For the past decade or so, we’ve been working with reissue producer Hunter Lea on re-releasing much of Lee’s vast catalog. These will be the next three titles in the series. The album Requiem For An Almost Lady may be my favorite all time Lee record.
Betty Davis – “Nasty Gal”
– Originally released on Island in 1975, Nasty Gal was Betty’s third album. It’s been out before as a shitty, semi-bootleg-looking reissue. This is the opposite – nicely remastered with lyrics and new notes by John Ballon interviewing Betty.
Digable Planets – “Reachin’ (A New Refutation Of Time & Place)”
– February 2018 marks the 25th anniversary of the band’s debut LP. This edition is expanded to two LPs (the original release never should’ve been a single LP, as it’s way too long to fit on a single LP) and includes some killer notes by Larry Mizell Jr and the lyrics for the first time.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
We’re working on ’em, so I can’t spill the beans quite yet.

Fredrik Lavik is the soul behind the Afro 7 label responsible behind some serious East African music archiving and some cracking releases on 45 and 12 inch, from deep Swahili Funk to Kenyan Boogie. Here’s the story behind one of the best labels around.

When did you start digging records?
My mother and father had a big record collection, so I grew up listening to this format but favored the CD when that came, I remember buying lots of electronic music IDM (intelligent dance music) in the mid-90s Orbital, the Orb, Aphex Twin, Atom Heart etc. But my crave for the «rare groove» started out in the late 90-ties in Stavanger, the oil capitol, west-coast of Norway. A friend of mine had parties in his basement and he started to bring in records he had found in second hand shops. At that time we listened to a lot of disco, common popular stuff like the Jacksons, Gloria Gaynor and The Trammps, mostly pulled from compilation cd’s. One day my mate came in with George Benson ‘Give Me the Night’ lp produced by Quincy Jones, that raised some eyebrows discovering that there is loads of «undiscovered songs» on this format. A few years after this while living in Bergen I started to regularly mail with Edward Griffiths (the man behind the blaxploitation.com blog) and he started sending ebay links to lp soundtracks. That was the start of spending a lot of money on the format. But back then you could get some of todays classics really cheap, like Manu Dibango countdown at kusini for 10 dollars etc.

What Lps did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
I started out buying a lot of soundtracks, at one time I had complete Blaxploitation catalogue. I’ve sold a lot of it. But kept the best ; Bullitt, Inner Space, Coffy etc. I am still a fan of soundtracks, in fact last year me and my mate Tobias (who runs preservation records) thought of the idea to start issuing Norwegian soundtracks that had not been released. Next year there will be 4 soundtracks on our little project label called Moving Music.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period?
No I am very eclectic in music taste, so I can savvy anything from early blues to nineties electronic music.

Are you still digging, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Whenever I can, I do still dig, it’s a passion, I just came back from Hungary it was a family trip but managed to scoop a little under 10 albums.

What was your first release on Afro7?
A Somali compilation entitled “Light and Sound of Mogadishu”. It was a project that Andreas Vingaard of Frederiksberg record suggested, he had found the guy behind the label, and the music was great, all the top acts recorded with this label. Great variety and proper sound quality too not that cassette sound. Matthew Lavoie had written a great post about the label on the VOA blog so that could run for liners, we came up with a package concept and got it out.

Them Mushrooms, in picture from left Teddy Kalanda Harrison, John Katana Harrison and  Billy Sarro Harrison.
‘Bi Uru Wamiel’

What could be your editorial/esthetic line ?
Often the my plan for reissuing or releasing a record starts somewhat in my head, where I can go days thinking around an idea for a release, or layouts and combinations. And then it starts taking shape, from all perspectives, tracking down the rights holder, make sure everyone gets paid and so forth.

A leight-motiv to sum upo the identity of Afro7 ?
The basic three: a good story behind the release, good sound quality and of course the most important aspect… great music.

Did you have any references labels for reissues?
Soundway keeps breaking boundaries with issuing a lot of good contemporary music, Strut too, and Numero One Group is great, Jazzman Gerald, Frotee in Estonia, We Jazz label in Finland, recently I bough some of the Music from Memory releases coming out of Amsterdam, there is bunch of great labels.

How do you work in Africa? With a network?
I have some friends that help me out, also the Internet is great searching up people… As global as it has become nothing is impossible.

Is it easier to find old LP’s in the countryside, where everything has not yet been explored?
Digging in Finland (where I live now) you can find stuff, but most of the interesting music happened in cities, so it’s much harder to scoop the good bits in the outer perimitors.

Black Belt Symphony, in picture Somayah ‘Peaches’ Moore Khaliq.
‘Brotherman’

Afro 7 focuses on Somalia and Kenya for the moment. Is there any particular reasons?
Yes many moons ago I bought a large collection of african seven inches from Kenya, and from that lot came a lot of work, listening, countless of hours, and sorting also posting selling etc. through the afro7.net blog This also put me on the map and resulted in the Kenya Special volume 1 release by Soundway.

You release mostly 7’’ and 12’’, can we expect an album reissue soon on Afro7?
Yes I have some albums in process and even more compilations, but these things take time and it’s mostly me running things. I also run the Jazzaggression label and have a few albums lined up there, the second album from The Bird Curtis Quintet from 1969 and a reissue of a rare norwegian jazz record.

Are Afro7 limited releases or you plan to reprint any sold out releases?

No we focus on limited 1000 runs and then rather move on with new releases instead of re-runs. Most of the music is also available digitally, so the music is still obtainable.

What are the differences, in terms of sound, production, between East and West Africa?
In terms of production value inn the golden era seventies and eighties. Some of the bigger labels like Philips, EMI and Polygram had Nairobi offices, with top equipment. All the regional countries from south and west came to Nairobi in Kenya to record as it was the musical hub. Therefore there was also a huge flora of smaller independent labels running. So you have literally hundreds and hundreds of different labels operating releasing singles only, sub labels for different tribes and styles etc. Musically East has always been rooted in more congolese guitar traditional styles, soukouss, lingala and out of this benga etc.

Scorpios, from left Regia Ishag, Osman Mohammed, Adam Bulewski and Ronnie Maxwell.
‘Safar’

And the place of North Africa in all this?
When you cross the border from Kenya to Ethiopia it all changes musically, it’s more arabic / indian influenced, tempo, scales and chord changes are somewhat more atuned to our western world musical tradition, although you can find some of that in in the Taarab music that was played along the Swahili spoken coastline from The Somali border to North of Tanzania.

How can we find, discover, new references, when so many people dig the same path?
There is always something new to discover, also trends die and then they are reborn again. I’m not that worried. Go back 5 years ago on the current DJ scene, synth music and drum-machines wasn’t that hot, look now, everyone is jumping on the next untapped Zouk record.

You have just published The Scorpios. Tell us their story? How did you discover them?
It was Montreal’s finest Philippe Noël of Canicule Tropicale who posted a YouTube clip with «Yaelhajarok» in the Congolese & East African records group on Facebook, the sound of that track caught me, it had that raw edge, sounded authentic enough and with these blistering female vocals. So I contacted the guy who had uploaded it, Adam Bulewski and we took it from there, somewhat three years later, after a single the full album was out. It’s been an interesting experience, it’s a record that people keep going back to, that gets better and better the more you listen…

Is it a matter of getting out of new artists or publishing rare reissues? What complementarities? And what are the specific difficulties of each activity?
Reissues or «older» music tend to sell better, so if it’s a contemporary band starting out it’s going to take a lot of promoting, regardless of how good the music is. In todays jungle that is a full time job.

Have you received many negative answers on some of the LPs, artists, unreleased tapes, you were trying to reissue?
No not really. Well I tried to get a live recording from Stavanger released once on my Jazzaggression label. Thought this will be an easy job but one of the main soloist was very abrupt «This ain’t happening». To some degree I could relate to his conflict on the matter, if you are musician it’s not really that interesting to hear yourself playing 40 years ago (just ask any sax player) to a listener it’s different, and when it comes to jazz… It’s less technical and younger players have a certain spontaneous energy that isn’t always present later… and compositions built up around «less is more» this is a subjective matter though, based on the listener typical rare groove atuned ears will agree

Guttorm Guttormsen Quartet, from left, Brynjulf Blix, Guttorm Guttormsen, Espen Rud and Carl Morten Iversen.
‘Soturnudi’

Nowadays, there are many LP labels who follow this model, I mean more quality even if it’s more expensive… but in same time, there are also another «new» LP market, with major companies come-back and other labels, who prefer to sell cheaper. Is it the (re)creation of two camps for the LP?
There are two types of buyers too, those who’s been buying records for years. And newcomers have to go the school.

There are more and more reissues of old LPs, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
It’s expensive to make records so at one point when sales drop, there will be fewer of those Lionel Richie box-sets happening. Not a bad word about him or his label but his past releases are fairly easy to find on the second hand market. Also more older diggers/collectors are fed up with going to a second hand store and having to dig through reissue after reissue, so I guess there will be more diverted sections in the future. I think it’s a bit tip of the iceberg right now, with the new resurgence in vinyl, factories has also increased production tool capabilities, so prices will go down and the mill will still run… so I’m not just certain when that overkill will hit us J

What are your other next releases?
Next year we have another twelve (a lot like the previous Them Mushroom one) and a full album, Scorpios is working on a second album too. On the jazzaggression tip there is the second Bird Curtis album coming and also a Norwegian jazz record from 1971. And two more soundtracks on Moving Music.

What is the 45 you dream of reissuing?
No specifics here, but yes three more afro 7 singles are lined-up for release next year. They are all great !